(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus capable of selecting a desired musical piece or song from a data base of a plurality of binary-coded musical pieces or songs and words thereof, and reproducing the selected musical piece while displaying the words thereof synchronously with such reproduction. The apparatus includes a unit for enabling the user to sing with a microphone while watching the words displayed in accordance with progression of the reproduced music. The apparatus further includes a means for down-loading the data via a public communication line.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
To enable a user to enjoy singing a song with a microphone at home or in a restaurant while watching the words visually represented on a display device simultaneously with the reproduced music, it has been necessary heretofore to prepare prerecorded tapes or optical discs and an apparatus for reproducing them.
In such apparatus, when the user wants to sing desired songs, or when some new musical pieces are released, it becomes requisite for him to successively add recorded tapes or optical discs to his repertory. However, since there exist a great number of known musical pieces or songs and new ones are released every month one after another, great expense is incurred if all of such new releases are to be stored. Furthermore, arises a need for providing a suitable place to store the recorded tapes and so forth.
In order to eliminate the above disadvantages, there may be contrived a means of transmitting music via a wire broadcasting system and allowing the listener to sing in accordance therewith. However, in such arrangement, it is impossible for the receiving side to select a desired musical piece or song at a time available for singing time for singing.
In view of such circumstances, there has been developed an improved system which constitutes a network comprising a host computer for sending digitized music signals to a plurality of terminal apparatus. According to this system, personal computers are employed as terminal units, and digital signals are transmitted thereto from a data base stored in the host computer. A desired musical piece or song is analyzed by an incorporated programmable sound generator composed of an integrated circuit (IC) and is controlled in the described language. Since such IC can be produced at low cost, each terminal unit can be rendered less expensive. On the other hand, however, the capability of the IC itself is so low that fine control of the sound volume cannot be executed in multiple steps. Furthermore, it is impossible to carry out fine setting of the duration of musical notes or to perform analysis for repetition of the musical piece. Consequently, some disadvantages are unavoidable including lack of musically expressive capability eventually resulting in failure to attain satisfactory music reproduction.
In another known system realized practically, music is transmitted through a telephone line and reproduced by the use of Videotex. However, it is still impossible for such system to achieve fine control of the sound volume due to limited the amount of data. In addition, since the number of simultaneously emittable tones to form a chord is limited to five or six, any sound composition with a great sonic tonal range is impossible. Furthermore, since there are only 15 notes, expressional capability is inadequate for employing the above apparatus for commercial use.
Meanwhile, there is known a PCM recording/playback system which converts each musical piece or song into digital signals units. According to such system, in which the musical piece or song is analyzed sequentially in time series, the digital amount needs to be displayed so that the total amount of the required data becomes extremely large. Therefore, although the expressional capability may be sufficient, the amount of the required data is excessive causing problems regarding the storage of multiple musical pieces or songs in a memory unit of a fixed capacity, and regarding data transmission through a public communication line.
Furthermore, with regard to display of words also, the words encoded in binary notation are transmitted together with the instrumental music data, and then are visually represented on a display device such as a cathode-ray tube (CRT). Also, it is necessary that the display of words be performed synchronously with the reproduction of the musical piece or song, so as to inform the user of the current portion of the words by changing the color of the words already sung or by indicating such portion with an arrow or the like. However, in the process of partially erasing the words or changing the color thereof by the use of the aforementioned Videotex, another problem arises in that the speed of replacement is reduced lower in displacing or erasing the words. Therefore it becomes necessary each time to replace the entire CRT-screen display, eventually resulting in loss of synchronism with the music being reproduced.